A Letter, Or Maybe Not.

Dear ---------,

Some days I still have this absurd belief...this strange idea, that one day I will wake up all of a sudden to find all of this a dream.

I would run downstairs to the Blondeau van that drove me all the way to Hawthorne, and you'd be there waiting for me along with Cuddly, standing under the shade of the rooftop. High school, growing up, planning for the future, and all those scary and confusing things would all vanish into the wind, and you would tell me that it had all been a beautiful nightmare, but I am awake now, and I will be alright. We would be in English class, back when it was still called language arts, and you would  laugh and say silly Emileaf, your verb tenses are all wrong! And why would you name the prince Charles, that's such an awful name. And never start your sentences with and, Cuddly would add. We'd laugh, and there seemed to be no concept of time. Colonel By and Cantebury and Lisgar would be such foreign names to us, because in our minds, we would stay like this forever, never change, and never leave. The play structure would wobble but never collapse; highrock would still be sitting dangerously behind that soccer goalpost; and everyone would never speak of maturing, changing, leaving, breaking.

So now I just haven't woken yet. Is that why I still see a place named Colonel By everyday? Is that why when I try to imagine your face again, I see it so pale and so heartwrenchingly unhappy?  It's all just a part of this dream, isn't it, this beautiful nightmare? But maybe I'll just wake up one day and you'll just be there again and it'd all seem so normal and wonderful.

I wished for a world with no change and endless repetition and cycling, a world where we can stay thirteen forever. Wouldn't you find it boring, if my wish actually came true? I would ask sheepishly. I don't hear you answer. But Cuddly says of course not, Emileaf, even if the whole world finds it so.

One day I cry, because I can't wake up. Maybe because of that alarm clock I smashed a long time ago. Or maybe because this is in fact the reality.

So maybe I have changed. I don't know if it's for worse or better.

Your rants will in no way seem silly to me, however serious Emileaf appears to be. Maybe I wouldn't know the right thing to say, but I will try my best to say things, and to understand you.

I care about you so much more than Firestar cares about his clan, more than kittypets care about their twolegs, and more than Jay cares about his stick.

So be happy for me, okay?
Cuddly and I will always be here for you if you ever feel like meeting us again.

Forever yours in clansmateship,
~E/M/H~